Bay Mills casino wins a reprieve

The prevailing wisdom was the Bay Mills Indian Community's hopes to operate an off-reservation gambling casino in Vanderbilt and a possible casino in Port Huron were all but dead.

After the Upper Peninsula tribe opened the Vanderbilt casino in November 2010, the state attorney general and The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians quickly won a federal district court injunction that closed the facility. Bay Mills was on the losing end of subsequent decisions that kept the Vanderbilt casino closed.

That changed with the U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals ruling Wednesday. The court removed the injunction against the Vanderbilt casino and ruled the lower court lacked jurisdiction in the case.

The decision doesn't mean the Bay Mills casino will reopen. But it does give new life to a cause that previously seemed hopeless.

Contrary to the contention of the attorney general and Little Traverse Bay Band, Bay Mills argued its Vanderbilt casino operated legally. The tribe bought the property with money it received from the federal government in compensation for lost lands. Therefore, the Vanderbilt property, Bay Mills contends, is tribal land.

The appeals court ruling effectively takes the parties back to square one. It also follows another important development in Michigan's casino wars.

This week, the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered a ballot initiative that asked state voters to approve eight new casinos to be excluded from the Nov. 6 ballot. The court said the initiative violates the Michigan Constitution by amending the state Gaming Act without specifying the portions of the law that would be changed.

Before this week, Bay Mills' Vanderbilt casino and its similar plan for Port Huron appeared strangled by the courts and awash with eight new casino proposals. The federal appeals court ruling doesn't completely resurrect the tribe's casino bids, but it does remove them from the morgue.

In Brian DePalma's 1987 movie version of "The Untouchables," gangster Al Capone uttered the following:

"...You have an all-out prize fight. You wait until the fight is over. One guy is left standing - and that's how you know who won."

Given this week's court rulings, those words easily apply to Michigan's changing casino gambling landscape and Bay Mills is still standing after all.

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Bay Mills casino wins a reprieve

The prevailing wisdom was the Bay Mills Indian Community's hopes to operate an off-reservation gambling casino in Vanderbilt and a possible casino in Port Huron were all but dead.